US warns Antigua against "government-authorized piracy"

The strong statement came after the tiny Caribbean country said it would suspend U.S. copyrights and patents, an unusual form of retaliation, unless the United States took its demands for compensation more seriously in a ruling Antigua won at the World Trade Organization.

"The economy of Antigua and Barbuda has been devastated by the United States government's long campaign to prevent American consumers from gambling on-line with offshore gaming operators," Antigua's Finance Minister Harold Lovell said in a statement.
"We once again ask ... the United States of America to act in accordance with the WTO's decisions in this matter."

U.S. copyright holders also blasted Antigua's plan. "We are of the firm view that suspending intellectual property rights is not the right solution, and that state‑sanctioned theft is an affront to any society," Steve Metalitz, counsel to the International Intellectual Property Alliance, said in a statement.

Antigua, a former British colony with few natural resources, has knocked heads with the United States since the late 1990s, when it began building an Internet gambling industry to replace jobs in its declining tourist industry.

The gambling sector at its height employed more than 4,000 people and was worth more than us$ 3.4 billion to the country's economy, but it has shrunk to fewer than 500 people because of U.S. restrictions, the Antiguan government says.

The United States said it never intended as part of its WTO commitments to allow foreign companies to offer online gambling services. In 2007, it began a formal WTO procedure to withdraw the gambling concession and reached a compensation package with all WTO members, except Antigua.